After getting Philip's coded message to flee, Elizabeth takes money, passports, and essentials and meets Philip at an abandoned garage. Philip tells Elizabeth they'll have to leave Henry behind, and while she protests at first, she eventually agrees. They both go to pick up Paige, and tell her what happened and why they had to leave. Unbeknownst to them, Stan, who was assigned to stake out a safe house illegals might be meeting at, instead has been staking out Paige's building, and he confronts Elizabeth, Philip and Paige in the garage. Philip and Elizabeth try to deny everything at first, but when Stan gets angry, they admit they were working for the Soviet Union, though they deny killing anyone. Philip admits Stan was his only friend, and tells him about the plot against Gorbachev. Paige tells Stan he needs to watch over Henry, and Stan, defeated, eventually lets them go.
Aderholt, meanwhile, has been questioning Father Andrei, and from a description given to a sketch artist, confirms Stan was right about Elizabeth and Philip being spies. Stan lies and says he didn't know before, and the FBI searches the Jennings' home. After Elizabeth and Philip call Henry for one last time to tell them they love him (without telling them who they really are), it's left to Stan to break the news to Henry when he visits him at St. Edward's. Oleg, meanwhile, is still in prison, and Arkady sadly confirms to Igor that since Oleg wasn't officially working on behalf of the KGB, he'll likely stay there for a long time.
After getting into disguises, and getting their new passports in order, Elizabeth, Philip and Paige take a train to Montreal so they can fly out to the Soviet Union. However, when the train stops in Rouses Point, New York for a security checkpoint, Paige shocks her parents by staying behind. Paige ends up going back to Claudia's place, while Elizabeth and Philip fly to the Soviet Union. Arkady arranges for them to be picked up, and he drives them to Moscow. Before they get there, Philip asks Arkady to stop the car, which he does, and Philip and Elizabeth get out of the car to look at the city they haven't seen in over twenty years and ponder their uncertain future.
The series finale contains examples of:
- All for Nothing: As far as Igor is concerned, Oleg going to America was this since he'll be rotting in prison there.
- Ambiguous Situation: Before Stan lets Philip go, Philip tells him his suspicions that Renee is really a Deep Cover Agent. We never find that out for sure, and neither does Stan. Her expression in her final scene when she watches the FBI coming in and out of the Jennings house, before going back inside her and Stan's house, is ambiguous enough.
- Back for the Finale: Gregory, in a Dream Sequence (see below).
- Bittersweet Ending: Elizabeth and Philip have escaped capture, but at the cost of leaving their children behind in the U.S., and they don't know
the Soviet Union as they know it will be no more in three years. - Blatant Lies: When Aderholt shows Stan the sketches of Elizabeth and Philip, and admits Stan was right, Stan acts as if he's confirming this for the first time, and says he'll kill Philip.
- Call-Back: A number of them:
- When Aderholt admits to Father Andrei the spies he met would have been wearing disguises, Father Andrei in turn admits he saw Elizabeth and Philip once when they weren't wearing disguises.
- Stan brings up the deaths of Gennadi and Sofia.
- Philip tells Stan he should have kept coming to EST meetings with him.
- Paige admits to Stan she found out the truth about her parents when she was 16.
- Stan asks Paige if her relationship with Matthew was a lie, and Paige says she got involved with Matthew because she liked him.
- The music playing over the scene when Elizabeth and Philip are looking at Moscow is Tchaikovsky's "None but the Lonely Heart Op. 6", which is the same piece Claudia played for Elizabeth and Paige once.
- Dream Sequence: Elizabeth dreams she's in bed with Gregory while she's pregnant with Paige, and he stops her from smoking because it isn't good for the baby, to which she replies, "I never wanted a kid anyway." Elizabeth then sees sketches from Erica, and a sketch of a black and gray and sad-looking Paige and Henry from previous years, before waking up on the plane to the Soviet Union.
- I Choose to Stay: One of the most heartbreaking examples of this trope, as Paige leaves the train taking her parents to Montreal, as she decides not to go with them to the Soviet Union.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: After Paige makes her way back to Claudia's house, she pours herself a glass of vodka.
- Initialism Title: The episode title refers to the STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev ended up signing in December 1987.
- Internal Reveal: Henry finally finds out the truth about his parents, from Stan, after they've fled the country.
- Ironic Episode Title: The last episode of the series is called "START"
- Precision F-Strike: Stan is so upset at Philip's betrayal, he calls Philip a "fucking piece of shit".
- Riddle for the Ages: Whether Renee is or not an Illegal, as Philip tells Stan.
- Rule of Symbolism: The last meal Elizabeth and Philip have in America is at McDonald's, which for many is one of the prime symbols of American capitalism.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Once again, Igor tries to invoke this when he says he'll contact Gorbachev himself to get Oleg back home, but Arkady points out since Gorbachev is in trouble himself, this most likely won't work.
- Shout-Out: Dire Straits' title track to their album "Brothers in Arms" plays while Elizabeth, Philip and Paige are getting their disguises and new passports, and when they call Henry to say goodbye.
- U2's "With or Without You" plays when the FBI is searching Elizabeth and Philip's house, when Elizabeth, Philip and Paige are on the train, and when Paige gets off the train.
- So Proud of You: When Philip calls Henry, he tells Henry this, as well as the fact he loves Henry, and Elizabeth repeats the message. Henry is a little weirded out, assuming Philip has been drinking.
- So What Do We Do Now?: Elizabeth and Philip ponder this when back in the Soviet Union.
- Was It All a Lie?: Stan wonders if his entire friendship with Philip has been like this, as well as Paige's relationship with Matthew. Philip counters that he truly considered Stan his best and only friend, while Paige counters that she truly liked Matthew.
